Статьи

Orientalist and the Book: Reflections on Changing Role of Libraries in the Information Field of the 21st Century

Восточная аналитика '2016, №2, с.7-17

 
scholars have special almost humane relations with professional literature that they collect for their studies. After decades of academic work their personal libraries may become a source of valuable information about their owners and their respective fields of study. Spheres of interest, book marks, epigraphy, textual study, - all this becomes a debating matter and a stock for further research in memorial libraries of prominent Orientalists that had donated their valuable personal pin-pointed book collections to the Institute of Oriental studies or to other institutions they had worked in. Researchers that work on tenure with their books gain a lot of insights and can substantially advance very special historical attributions and discoveries. These written sources stimulate knowledge transfer and give special flavor to the school of Russian Oriental studies. Dialoguing both with written sources, within and between generations stimulates talented research. This has become the rationale for setting an international study platform “Diaversity” that promotes rapid feedback in specialized knowledge transfer. This seems important in the time of Russian academic reform that deals with tangible and intangible capital. And libraries in social sciences encounter a number of threats: shortage of free space and financing, mortal danger of fire and water leakage. But they also offer scholars luxury of personal communication with history and this gives us a promising chance for leapfrog development.